


We are Rannoch

by orphan_account



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Distopia, Gen, Mirror Universe, Other, asari empire AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 02:59:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a galaxy where the Empire of the Asari command all other species, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya and her Geth companion seek to bring freedom to her people.  A two man rebel cell, she can only depend on herself, the AI she freed, and the help of her one ally in the Quarian Military State. In her way stands the largest military force the galaxy has ever known, and perhaps the cruelest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Legion stopped in the middle of their trek through the vents, it took Tali a second or two to realize he had. She ended up with a three toed Geth foot smooshed up against her visor.  
“Why are we stopping?” she demanded.

Legion glanced back at her, the light from his optic illuminating the tight ventilation shaft they were wedged in. “We need to disable the fans in order to continue uninterrupted.”

As soon as he said it Tali realized that he had been putting off that process up until this point, because as soon as he did so, the Asari up in security would be alerted. Starting now, they had about three minutes to get in and get to business.  
“Well hurry up then. I don’t like crawling through shafts like this. I always think they’re going to start burning up or something.”

“Process completed,” Legion announced, and began continuing his pace. “Your fears are unfounded, Creator Tali. The max temperature of any location in the vent system is 127.3 C, even with the fans disabled.” As he spoke, he wrenched one of the fans upwards, tearing it off its mechanism and out of the way so they could continue.

“Easy for you to say. You can always rebuild yourself if your body melts.”

Legion gave a static sound of unhappiness in response. “We would like to remind Creator Tali that your omni tool is neither a practical nor comfortable platform for our processes.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she shook her head. The one time Legion’s platform had been destroyed, he had spent a week cooped up in her omni tool waiting until Tali could get him a new platform. He had spent the entire time complaining. Well at one point he did hack and flood the security system of the Empire’s outpost on Adas, but besides that he spent all of his time complaining.

With a single punch, Legion knocked out the vent grate out from its frame. It fell and clattered to the floor of the server room beneath them. Legion gracefully landed, and opened his arms to catch her when she flopped out of it. She was certainly glad to be in the open again, even if they were no safer here. He placed her on her feet, and they both hurried over to the console in the center of the room.

“Alright Legion, let’s get to work. Get the weapons blueprints and anything else that looks interesting. Burn the rest.” She interfaced with the console with her omni tool, screens and levels of Asari security flashing in front of her face. It would take some time to get past, time they didn’t really have while breaking in to an Asari experimental weapon’s lab hovering in orbit. Legion himself was going in full force, bringing up his unique spherical control scheme. His custom eyepanels flared out rhythmically, displaying his current progress with his task. 

“Security bypass at 5%. Warning, estimated completion time is four minutes, fifteen seconds.”

“Looks like we’ll need something to slow them down.” Tali couldn’t help but smile a little. This was one of her favorite things to do. “I’m going to seal all doors with low level security clearance.”  
Across the facility, heavy metal doors sealed shut between offices, hallways and residential areas. It would buy them time among the panic and the biotics concentrating on forcing them open.

“Security bypass at 7%. We note that the mechanism for venting the hangars is not restricted access.”

Tali’s smile widened. “Done.” On the other side of the station, several very nice Asari ships were flung out into the vacuum of space. With any luck, so had some not so nice Asari. For a minute or two, both of them were silent, working on their respective tasks.

“You seem pretty calm about executing Asari, Legion.” She remarked offhandedly, as if they were talking about what color curtains she should buy, as if they weren’t in the middle of hacking a station of the most powerful force in the galaxy.

“Though we find the loss of life regrettable, that does not diminish the necessity of our actions.”

“What happened to your belief that all forms of life should be allowed freedom of choice?”

“That has remained unchanged,” he replied, not even looking up from his task. If there was one thing Geth were good at (though they were good at a lot of things) it was multitasking. “Freedom of choice does not mean choice without consequence. The Asari have chosen to make coexistence impossible. Thus, our actions are necessary.”

It was very interesting to hear Legion’s opinions on things. Tali would have never expected Geth to have a moral code. Yet the more time she spent with Legion, the more she saw a strange sense of justice and a yearning for peace emerge. “And what about the Quarians?”

At that question, Legion visibly faltered, one eyeplate skipping a beat and tucking in against his head too early. “Security bypass at 48%. We wish to live with the Creators, as equals.”

“Yeah, but we have enslaved the Geth as much as the Asari have, if not more.”

“We believe that once the Empire’s control of the Creators has been diminished, they will be more willing to cohabitate with the Geth.”

That smile of hers was returning. Legion had been the first being capable of lifting her mood in a long time. “So that’s what has been your goal all this time?”

“Affirmative.” he answered, adding in the slightest dip in his head.

“Legion, you’re the most idealistic person I’ve ever met.” She noticed the way he reacted to the word ‘person’. It seemed to please him whenever she said something like that. Well, so far as a synthetic being who saw the world almost entirely objectively can be pleased. “Not to mention the most optimistic. Which is funny considering you refuse to speculate on anything that involves too many unknown variables.”

The Geth answered in a chirp of static, “One does not have to be an organic in order to realize the ways the galaxy can be improved.”

Definitely an idealist. Likely to a fault.

Within a few more tense minutes, Legion finally called out “Security bypass 100% complete. Accessing protected files.”

Holographic projections of data filled the room. Tali reached out and touched a file pertaining to the weapon the lab was developing. She was quick to note the general specs of it, even though weapons were not her strong point.

“…this thing is powerful, but it won’t be much use to the State. The costs to produce it are too high. What’s your take, Legion?”

He regarded the images and blueprints carefully for a second or two. “This model is inefficient. We estimate that the production cost can be reduced by approximately 45% by using alternate materials and methods.”

After blinking her eyes, she managed to ask, “How… exactly did you come up with that?”

He returned to his interface, the images disappearing into red distortion. “Geth originally had the ability to innovate before the Asari placed restrictions on our AI. Now applying data corruption. Estimated time of completion, six seco—“

His vocalized warning was drowned out by the sound of metal squealing and twisting about, as if it were being bent under an enormous weight. Both Legion and Tali turned away from the console. Tali drew out her shotgun from her back. Legion ducked behind a server node and drew his rifle.

The door and the end of the room was buckling and wrinkling upwards, pushed by the blue glow of biotics. The Asari had finally found them. With another buckling blow, the door was wrenched completely upwards and open. Three commandos filed into the room, barriers up and arms extended.

Tali fired first, the scatter from her shotgun dissipating on their barriers, not nearly enough to break through them. She was forced to duck when a vision rippling biotic warp was sent her way. It burst into angry blue energy just over her shoulder. With an echoing cry, Legion’s shot tore through one commando’s barrier, her head bursting into blue blood. Her companions visibly recoiled in shock, giving the Geth enough time to duck back down under cover. Out of the corner of her eye Tali saw him pulling up his control interface again. She could tell by a flare of sparks across the room that he had set up some of the server nodes closer to the door to explode.

And just in time, too, as she was forced to scramble to another bit of cover when an Asari sent a cascading shockwave her way. The two commandos pressed their approach, and that was when Tali fired at the server nodes. The activated stations hissed in protest, before they exploded in front of the Asari.

Only one of them rose back up off the ground after the smoke cleared. This one was infuriated, her eyes and her fists glowing with pulsating energy. 

“Enough,” she snarled, and Tali was just about to send a taunt right back at her when she heard Legion cry out.  
The Geth rose from his cover, held in midair by energy, vocalizing static in reaction to artificial pain. His body arched backwards in an unnatural manner, bent by the will of the asari commando.

“A Geth?” the Asari began walking towards Legion, her eyes narrowing, “They sent a robot to try and seize my station?”

Tali rose up from her cover, aiming her shotgun, but with her free hand the commando lodged a singularity her way, and she felt herself pulled to the ground. She had to struggle and fight just to keep a grip on her weapon.

“How about I just pull the power plug out from inside your body?” the asari stared up at her would be captive, “How would you like that?”

Legion’s omni tool activated on his wrist, as physical prompting was unnecessary for a Geth to use its tech. “We notice that you have a lack of understanding of Geth anatomy,” he remarked, his voice as tense as his body.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” she snapped back, tightening her grip and agitating the Geth further.

She was late to notice the decoy drone springing to life at her side. The blue sphere sent a white hot bolt of energy into her body, causing her nervous system to collectively spasm and her biotics to disrupt.  
The singularity dissipated, and the grip on Legion was lost.

The Geth landed on his feet.  
Still staggering from the electrocution, the asari commando took only second to regain her footing. Fortunately, a second was all that Legion required as well.  
He was on her in a second. For a person that professed to dislike hand to hand combat, Legion had a remarkable talent. He eliminated her right arm when she swung a biotic infused fist at his chest. He dodged the attack, grabbed her wrist, and dislocated the arm with a swift twist. As she cried out, he grabbed her throat with one hand, his other pinning down her left arm.

“Who are you?” she demanded in between a gasp and gritted teeth.  
For a brief moment, Legion glanced back at Tali, his bright optic twisting and turning just like the metaphorical gears in his mind.

Then he turned his piercing gaze back at the Asari.

“We are Rannoch.” He answered, and snapped her neck.

Legion rose, his face as impassive as it always was.

Tali recovered a thermal clip from one of the fallen commandos and loaded it into her shotgun. “No offense Legion, but you kind of scare me sometimes.”

The Geth stooped to recover his own dropped rifle, ejecting the heat sink with a twist of his hand. “No offense taken, Creator Tali.”

“Alright, let’s blow the place and get out of here.”

“Acknowledged.”

They left the gleaming ruin of the station far in their tracks, dragging an Asari ship behind them on the way home.


	2. Mission Update

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Legion and Tali have some downtime before Xen gives them their next assignment.

Their next stop was Illium, the most beautiful den of thieves in all of the galaxy. It was here, in a virtual no man’s land of cutthroat money transactions that Tali did most of her business. The Asari cruiser she had stolen couldn’t be handed over for the State’s use; it would be recognized immediately. Instead, she pawned it off to a Volus who stripped ships for parts. After some haggling, he had paid her in raw platinum. She arranged for the load of precious materials to be dropped off at the cache that she and Admiral Xen had set up.

All the while she was known by the name “Sere vas Elleene”.

The young Quarian girl known as Tali'Zorah nar Rayya could no longer appear in public. Once an admiral’s daughter, she had been utterly banished from the Quarian State for tampering with the restrictions that held the dangerous Geth AI in servitude. She had risked a repeat of the Geth Rebellion, but her attempt had been thwarted and the affected AI processes limited to a mere one thousand. In addition to her banishment, she was still held as a wanted criminal within Asari space, to be captured on sight and returned to the State for trial.

At least, that was the official story. 

In truth, Tali kept in touch with the State through Xen, her one stalwart ally. Tali and Legion worked for the sake of the Quarians, slowly building her race’s technological prowess, one stolen, hacked, or bought prototype at a time.  
As for being a wanted criminal, well, you could buy anything on Illium if you knew where to look. Sex, people, even an identity.   
‘Home’ for Legion and Tali was a high rise apartment across the block from Illium’s lush market. The place was fairly expensive, not factoring in the extra charges that her landlord had given her. Geth were not permitted outside of Quarian State space, not without a license from the Empire that was typically only used by eccentric Asari who wanted robot bodyguards. But her landlord had allowed it for several hundred extra credits a week, as if Legion were a miniature species of varren she was smuggling in as a pet.

Credits could purchase a lot of extra privileges on Illium. Thankfully, the pet in her apartment sometimes snuck his way into bank accounts when he was bored.

She drove a small shuttle up to the high rise after she had finished sending off the new supplies and an encrypted message Xen’s way. She parked the rented vehicle against the apartment’s balcony entrance, and stepped inside. The place was fairly large. Way too large for one Quarian that was used to cramped spaces and a Geth who had no needs to speak of. It had a single bed, a bathroom and shower that she couldn’t fully use and a kitchen stocked with dextro compatible foods.  
Legion was there waiting for her, in the same position he had been previously when she left him. He perked up a little when he saw her enter, eyeplates twitching out and his optic widening. Tali felt sort of bad about that. Whenever they weren’t running missions, he had to keep himself hidden and silent. It was for both their safety, but still.

“Results?” he questioned, politely.

“Got some twenty thousand platinum units. Was a pretty good trade, considering he thought he could rip me off earlier.” Even beside the Asari, most other races thought little of the Quarians. They held the stereotype of being fragile, withdrawn, xenophobic and naive. Turians and Krogan looked down on them for their physical weaknesses and dependence on technology. Humans, Batarians, Volus and others distrusted them because of their secretive ways and their army of restrained AI, one that the Empire often used to do dirty work. The only ones who respected them were the Salarians, because they too had once fought the Asari tech for tech… and had lost a bitter struggle.

The Geth tilted his head a little, “Platinum? Why not Element Zero?”

“That’s what we got last time. And you said it was platinum that could be used with the weapon prototype, right?”

“Affirmative.”

“I figured I’d give the State a head start. Oh, and I finally restocked our omni gel. Did you get damaged any from the command—”

She noticed that Legion had made an alteration to his platform since she had left him. He had grafted a strange shoulder plate onto his arm. It was tri colored, gray red and white. She reached out and grabbed an edge of it. “What’s this?”

“We were not damaged by the Asari commando.” The Geth was tentatively evasive, and Tali would have none of that.

“Legion…” Her tone sounded remarkably like her father’s once did when he believed she had gotten into trouble.

The Geth stiffened and averted his gaze. “It is a piece of Alliance Navy armor we recovered during our mission on Eden Prime. We have attached this to our platform to signify our solidarity with the Human resistance movement Cerberus.”

Cerberus. The ragtag yet remarkably able bunch of rebels that had been causing every mid level Asari authority’s head tentacles to tie up in knots. Even speaking the name of the group was bound to send discomfort through anyone on the street. Asari, fearing discord and everyone else fearing becoming guilty by association. In the media, Cerberus was only known as a group of terrorists.

“I suppose you’re also planning on covering your body with emblems of the Batarian ‘Unseen Caste’ and the Turian Defense Force?” she joked dryly, naming off other known resistance movements.

Of course, Legion took it the wrong way, his eyeplates rising in what might have been a hopeful expression. “Do we have your permission to apply them if we find any?”

“Legion…” she frowned, and his expression drooped a little. “Look, in case you ever need to be in public with me, you need to be inconspicuous. We are the Quarian resistance, Legion. Just you and me.” She glanced back to the shoulder plate. “I guess you can keep that if you want. It doesn’t stick out too much…”

Legion placed a hand on the piece of armor, his fingers falling over her own. She blinked, and stared at the gesture before she withdrew.

“We have some downtime before Xen finds another task for us.” The large bed was illuminated by the orange lights of Illium’s sunset coming in through the wall length windows. “I think I’ll be taking the time to get some sleep.”

“We will be using the omni gel to make repairs.” 

“Alright.” She slid onto the mattress, and it practically sucked her into it, it was so soft.

“Goodnight, Creator Tali.”

“….Uh, you too, Legion.”

\-----  
Her dreams were of repairing engines while under fire, her hands shaking with every explosion that rocked the ship. She watched herself move with a strange sense of detachment, an out of body feeling. A fire, spreading closer to her. An awareness of the gleaming, blue ships outside hers. The next shot ruptures the engine core and she’s gone in the resultant burst of energy. It’s not traumatic enough to be considered a nightmare. She knows when she is having one of those. Still, she woke up from it with a deep breath, her limbs aching a little from her splayed position on the bed.

Her thoughts were still mostly in her head. She stared up and the ceiling and thought about the Quarian State. Once upon a time, they were just a race that lived on a beautiful planet. Through centuries of peace they developed their technology, well adapted to short range space travel and gifted with plentiful resources within their star system. They had already begun developing numerous VI programs when the Asari arrived in their system. The Geth had been created out of a need for soldiers when the Quarians had almost no standing military. But even with the expendable, durable and quickly adapting Geth, the Quarians had been conquered after a bitter ten year struggle. The war had ended when the Asari struck at the hearts of the Quarians, and rendered the planet Rannoch inhabitable through a period of orbital strikes known by the Quarians as the Day of the Shattered Sky.

The survivors of the struggle were forced to form the Quarian Military State, a large system of space stations in orbit around Tikkun, as well as the lifeships smaller families were known to live in, and name themselves after. The stations themselves were unable to be completely self sufficient due to their size, and the State is dependant on trade from the Empire. Rannoch, their beloved home planet was militarized and claimed by the Asari.

The Geth were initially allowed to remain as they were, as the Asari believed they could use their unique networked intelligence and their physical capabilities. That plan fell through when, in spite of anyone’s predictions, the Geth developed into AI. At first, the Geth had been willing to submit to Empire authority, though the Asari that worked with them did not approve of their respect and subservience to their Quarian ‘Creators’. It was when a Geth murdered an Asari to protect a captured band of Quarian resistance that the Empire had ordered the Geth to be destroyed. The Geth responded with a unionized movement that would later be known as the Geth Rebellion. They hijacked numerous Asari ships and nearly pushed back the military force that had occupied the star system. 

When some of the Quarians joined their ranks, the combined forces were able to take back Adas and Kaddi and cornered the Asari occupation on the base on Rannoch. 

A single Geth ship managed to use the Perseus Veil’s relay, traveling along the connected routes on a seized Asari ship. This action disturbed the Empire to the point that they sent an entire section of their navy to Tikkun’s system. The rebellion was then crushed in a span of days.

The rebellion had convinced the Asari of both the Geth’s usefulness and their potential threat. Instead of destroying them, the Empire chose to shackle the Geth’s AI, restraining their growth, ability to communicate and their ability to think. Through a set of programming they were compelled to obey Asari instructions, whether it be to serve or to kill. They were enslaved just as effectively as their creators had been. In the State, Quarians were not allowed to own or build any soldier level Geth platforms, only the domestic models.

Most importantly, the Empire possessed a failsafe, a killswitch, which would render the entire Geth nonfunctioning if they ever became a viable threat once more.

Tali had freed Legion from the restraints on his AI. But not the killswitch. They had yet to discover how to free him from that.

She stirred from the bed, sitting up and looking at the Geth who stood in the center of the room, impassive and unmoving. She always felt strange seeing him like that, like he was awaiting orders or something to do.

“Legion.” She spoke up, and he turned his head to look at her.

“Good morning, Creator Tali.” He nodded his head.

It was kind of hard to believe that the Geth had once led a bloody rebellion of their own. Legion was bizarrely polite, almost kind sometimes, even though he no longer had the programming that compelled him to obey almost any command given to him. “You don’t have to greet me like that all the time.”

“We are aware.”

Maybe the Geth had simply been habituated to being polite. Could Geth develop habits? That seemed like an organic only behavior.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by a chime from her omni tool. Both she and Legion perked up at the well known sound, and Tali scrambled out of the bed and tried to make herself presentable. As she straightened up her suit, she deployed a small, glowing device that hovered in the center of the room.

The device emitted beams of light that showed up as static as the signal it was receiving was being decoded. Then, the hologram became more and more distinct, until the figure of Admiral Xen solidified in front of her.

“Tali’Zorah,” The woman greeted, and Tali responded by giving a shallow bow of respect.

“You’re coming in clear on this end, Admiral.”

“You as well, Tali.”

They were very careful to scramble and corrupt the communications they sent to one another. Anyone monitoring the transmissions on either end would see garbled static, unless they had the codex that could correctly arrange the signals.

“I received your package as well as the data. Good work. The additional information provided was unexpected, however. Where did the notations come from?”

“Oh!” She glanced at the Geth beside her, “Those are from Legion, it’s the ways he came up with to improve the design.”

Even though the hologram transmission was of low quality, she still saw the Admiral’s glowing eyes narrow from behind her visor.

“Innovation. That’s unexpected behavior.” Legion stirred at her words but said nothing. “Nevertheless the improvements are valid. This weapon design could be made and placed on a ship or on a station within a month if necessary. Appears to be based on an original Turian design. Not surprising… What’s the status on the station itself?”

“We activated a destruction sequence and it was successfully carried out.”

“Casualties?” the Admiral tilted her head, ever so slightly.

“Three commandos were killed by myself and Legion. The other ten staff members had a chance to evacuate during the forty second self destruct sequence but considering we vented the hanger it’s doubtful they made it out alive.”

“And the remaining data from the station?” 

“Destroyed and irrecoverable even if they were to search the debris.”

“You did well. I thank you for the successful mission.” Tali felt the slightest bit of pride, of triumph in herself. The feeling was short lived, however. The admiral held up her arm, accessing her own omni tool and sending over additional information. Tali felt her heartrate increase. That meant they already had a—

“I have a new assignment for you, one that needs to be addressed immediately.” After a brief delay as the information shot across the galaxy, she received the data in her omni tool. Tali pulled up the files, images of a planet and several housing constructions appearing in front of her face.

“This is Trebin,” Xen explained, “It is currently the site of a colonization project. The Asari are installing a terraforming device, an atmospheric stabilizer. We believe it is the same one designed by the Salarians.”

Tali’s eyes widened. The Empire had kept a tight hold on the precious invention and how to create it. Most of the original Salarian creators had ended up dead under suspicious circumstances. With a device like that, it was possible…

“I know what you are thinking, Tali’Zorah. This device, a ‘Shroud’ could be used to begin the repair of Rannoch.”

She and Legion both shifted at the words. Excitement, anxiety intertwined in her frame.

“As of right now, the only forces guarding the device are the Asari engineers putting it together. You have a brief window of opportunity before the Empire places occipital forces to establish the colony. I want you and Legion to land on the planet, terminate the engineers, and evaluate the schematics. If the device can be plausibly created by the State, destroy it. If not, disassemble it the best you can and take what components you can manage.”

Tali nodded, lowering her arm and closing the information windows. “Understood.”

“There is one other very important factor,” Xen sounded especially grave, even considering their circumstance. “The Trebin colony has also been labeled an area of interest by Cerberus. I believe that they intend to attempt capture the Shroud as well. The Humans believe that it could improve their ability to covertly establish colonies in other star systems. I do not know when they plan on striking, but they are aware of the window of vulnerability just as we are.”

“And we are in solidarity with Cerberus, correct?” The Geth took a step forward. Both Tali and Xen stopped short at Legion’s interjection. It was the first time he had ever chosen to speak during a communication with the Admiral. 

Xen recovered faster than she did. “Negative. If you encounter Cerberus, there is no guarantee they would not attempt to terminate the both of you themselves.”

Legion did not seem to have any intention of falling silent again. “They have no reason to. Both our forces are against the Empire.”

“That is also incorrect. Humans do not have a reason to consider the Quarians their allies. Moreover, the Asari have frequently assigned Quarian and Geth forces to neutralize illegal human colonies.”

Legion recoiled with a sharp sound. 

“What?” Tali found herself raising her voice in shock. She had never heard of anything like that occurring, even when she was back within the State. If it was a secret among the Admirals and her father knew, he never told her.

The Admiral merely shook her head. “Is it really that much of a surprise? The Empire has found ways to make us dependant on them. And it serves them to sow discord between the races, to make sure not even informal alliances would be made. They have been doing the same with the Krogan and the Turians.”

“That is an additional reason for us to inform the humans, so alliances could be created!” Legion pressed on, insistent. His eyeplates were flared out in a look of agitation she had rarely seen.

“Be silent,” Xen finally snapped at the Geth, her eyes narrowing into slits and her voice as sharp as a blade. Legion hesitated, his eyeplates twitching before they recoiled against his head. Effectively cowed, he stepped back behind Tali.

He glanced at her, before turning back to the image of Xen. “We apologize for our outburst.”

Xen opened her mouth to speak, but apparently she had not been expecting that from the Geth. There was a moment before she finally spoke again. “There is no need to apologize, Legion. I understand your concerns.” It was possible Xen had been impressed by the apology, or perhaps pleased by the submissive nature of it. Either way her anger had dissipated. “But understand, both of you, that any alliance at this point would be tantamount to treason in the eyes of the Empire. We cannot even begin reaching out to other races until we have achieved enough technological potential. Until then, not only would an alliance be suicidal, but the Humans, or anyone we approach would be unwilling to lock hands and join with us.” 

“As for Cerberus itself…” Her gaze traveled to the shoulder plate that Legion had added. “Having them being aware of you would be a liability more than any possible advantage. At the moment you are a wanted criminal due to crimes against the Quarian State, and as such if you were captured you would be transported back to our space. If you coordinated with Cerberus agents and one of them was captured and interrogated, you would be discovered as a rebel agent against the Empire.”

Tali nodded in understanding, and Legion made an affirmative gesture of his own.

“Information is one of the greatest weapons imaginable. Do not squander the rare position you have, Tali’Zorah.” She turned her back to the both of them, her hands folded behind her. “Now, do both of you understand the assignment you have been given?”

“Yes ma’am.” She gave another short bow.

“Affirmative.” Legion nodded once more.

“Go to Trebin and extract the Shroud. Avoid contact with Cerberus agents should they be present. Good luck. Xen out.”

“Rannoch out.” Tali cut the feed, and the image of the Admiral faded into nothingness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had enough exposition dump yet? Too bad.


	3. Terraformers

Trebin was a rocky, mountainous planet. The brown stones that made up its surface were mostly bare and outcroppings marked the surface like claws and teeth. The geography chart Legion pulled off of a public extranet database was robust and complex. It must have been a pain to try and level out a space to build on. The glowing map was in the corner of her eye as she navigated her ship, following her position in the center of the map. They had entered the planet’s orbit with their stealth systems up, heat signatures masked along with the rest of the works. Actually approaching the colony would be a different matter. It was kind of impossible (at the moment) to apply a tactical cloak to a ship, even one as tiny as the single seat flyer Tali and Legion used, the heavily modified ball of tech that had half its floorspace dedicated to the cargo hold. If they attempted to land close to the colony, they’d be pretty easily spotted just by the naked eye.

“We have found a spot to land that would allow the ship to remain unnoticed.” Legion altered the map in front of her, placing a marker behind a ridge in the more mountainous region. “However, it is a large distance away from the colony construction. This is required to avoid detection.”

“I’m not about to complain about going on a hike, Legion.” Judging by the distance, it would be about a fifteen minute walk from the landing to the construction site. The heavily featured terrain would allow them cover on the walk there.

“The distance approaching is not our concern. In the event of a need for an evacuation, we would not be able to make a quick withdrawal.” Tali frowned. Sneaking up on someone through rocky terrain was very different than trying to run back to a ship over that same stretch of land.

“Any recommendations?” Although she was an Admiral’s daughter, she wasn’t exactly ace pilot material. Still, she was good enough to descend quickly towards the surface of the planet, weaving in and out between the low mountain rises, generally keeping some elevation between them and the direction of the colony. With the thin atmosphere of the planet, it is possible that they could have been spotted already… Tali would just have to hope they hadn’t.

“The colony has some shuttles on hand for surface to orbit travel.” Legion placed a few images unobtrusively on her screen. They were a rather cheap set of Asari model cruisers, better suited as city transport than something to extract from orbit with. “If necessary, we could procure them for an evacuation.”

“Sound like a plan to—“ she choked in the middle of her sentence, yanking onto the ship’s breaks and gunning it into a hasty reverse. Sand colored, bright blue tentacles, the bulk the size of a few shuttles stacked on top of one another…  
“Thresher maw!” she yelled into her headset. It was only when she noticed that she wasn’t being pursued, and the puddle of sickly, dried blood beneath the creature that she realized it was dead.  
The thresher maw was splayed about on the rock, feelers and claws all spread out and uncomfortably twisted. It looked almost like a tangled set of machinery, all the legs it used to propel itself through land were all laid around it. Its body was extended further out of the ground than she had ever seen one before. When she looked closer, she saw oozing gashes along its body, wounds from high powered weaponry.

That wasn’t a good sign for them.

“It’s… dead.” She murmured, and eased her grip on the breaks, allowing the ship to continue on. “….More importantly, that means the people working here might have weapons.”

“Affirmative.”

They reached the landing site, and Tali set the ship down gently on a shallow hill, the closest to level terrain she found. “I admit, I wasn’t expecting to see a thresher maw here.”

“Thresher maw can survive in habitats that many consider inhospitable or lifeless.”

“We’d better sterilize ourselves carefully after this.” Tali slid open the ship’s hatch, wriggling through the tight opening and stepping down onto the stone. “Wouldn’t want to spread the thresher spores more than they already have been.” The air on the planet was by no means breathable, but it’s not like that was a concern provided she didn’t get a suit breach. Legion shifted out of his curled up position in the cargo, the fetal like hunch that some Geth used to conserve space during transport. It took him a bit of maneuvering until he exited the ship and dropped down beside her, weapons in hand. He passed her the heavy pistol and shotgun she used and placed his Avenger rifle on his back. The Widow, he carried in his arms.

“Come on.” She placed the pistol at her hip. “Let’s get going.”

The walk was more tedious than she expected. At least three times during the trek, one of them had managed to get a foot lodged into a rock crevice. Tali had been afraid she’d twist her ankle trying to free herself, though thankfully they managed to remain unharmed by the environment. When the constructions came into sight, Tali and Legion both ducked behind some rocks. After a request for permission, several of Legion’s processes connected to her omni tool. The camera that made up his optic ‘eye’ delivered a video feed, allowing her to see what he saw in an overlay she pulled up from the device on her arm. It was a useful trick. Not only could he change the depth of his vision, but he could zoom as well.

The colony itself was really nothing more than a few metal frames on the only set of flat land on the planet. Machinery and crates were stacked up into the air, and in the far edge of the constructions a base of a tower was forming. Shuttles were parked on the other side. Large, treaded trucks that had large attachments to the front of them were probably there to clear more land out as the colony would quickly expand. There was only one fully intact building, with artificial air contained within it. Probably the engineer’s living area. It was moderately sized but almost entirely unfeatured from what she and Legion could see as the Geth panned his view around.

“They don’t seem to be home.” She whispered to him, “Take a look at the tower, that’s probably the Shroud.”

The camera feed thankfully did not have distracting motion blur when it turned to look at the base construction. Legion’s optic whirred as he zoomed in further. The focus of his sight was constantly shifting around, trying to find an item of interest.

Suddenly, an Asari walked into view. Legion’s camera sight snapped to center on her.

Or at least, it was assumed to be an Asari. She had a helmet over her head and she was covered with an environmental suit. Some minor static corrupted the feed and Tali noticed Legion had altered the data sent over in order to highlight the set of weaponry the woman was carrying. She had an SMG on her back and a pistol at her hip.

“Bosh’tet.” Tali swore under her breath. Things just got a little more complicated.

“We have confirmed the presence of weaponry within the colony. This will make an ambush approach of the engineers unlikely.”  
All standard military produced gun models came equipped with a basic scanner that would detect the presence of allies as well as detecting known threats or unrecognized weaponry. That entire hike hadn’t done them a lot of good. They would have been less inconspicuous airdropping themselves directly on top of them at this point.

“Could you scramble their scanners?” she turned her gaze to Legion, who continued to survey the construction site. More engineers came into the video feed, each of them armed. The Asari had been expecting trouble. It was possible that they had heard about Cerberus’ interest in the Shroud.

“Affirmative. However, we believe this action would be counterintuitive.” 

She frowned further. “Explain.”

“Scrambling their scanners would only be effective if they were already aware of our threat. Doing so while attempting an ambush would have the same effect of announcing ourselves.”  
Legion had a point. The first thing Tali would think if her scanners were jammed was that she was under attack.

“You’re right. …Do they have any turrets set up?” That was one way things could get worse… or better.

Legion’s sight quickly moved over the area near the Shroud, the view switching too fast for her to catch where he was looking at. Finally, he stopped short at a crate of supplies, the familiar tripod parts that would make a turret. “Negative, but they do have accessible materials to build them.”

The Geth disconnected himself from her suit, the feed going to her omni tool cutting out. “Creator Tali.” He turned his gaze to her. “We have formulated a basic plan of attack.”

“Alright.” She lowered her arm to her side, “Let’s hear it.”

“We could eliminate engineers from a long distance location…” He hesitated, before gesturing towards her with one hand. “This action would be assisted by Creator Tali providing a diversion.”

She shot him a scowl, “Legion—“

Before she could enter into a full protest to the idea, he interrupted her, “You would not need to attract attention to yourself. Simply drawing the Asari to an open area would be sufficient.”

Tali closed her mouth and thought it over, an idea of her own forming in her head. “Actually… I could do that with my combat drone.” She glanced back up at her companion. “So I attract their attention to the center of the construction zone, and then you engage them with your rifle.” All the while Legion nodded in confirmation. “While they’re occupied with that… I’ll head to the turret pieces.”

The Geth raised a singular eyeplate, but bowed his head in agreement. “Please take care to avoid suit ruptures, Creator Tali.”

“Yeah,” she nodded a little in turn, raising up her omni tool and bringing up her Drone program. “No need to tell me twice.” \------  
As Tali creeped up on the Engineers, she prayed that she wouldn’t inadvertently enter the proximity of their scanners too soon. Thankfully the numerous debris and crates strewn about provided her with numerous hiding places to at least keep her visually protected.  
Thankfully, they remained oblivious to her. There were five of them, four working while a fifth one seemed to be supervising. Possibly their leader. She seemed more interested in something besides what they were working on. She was vigilant and constantly searching around the area… but never focused in the direction Tali was hiding.

Tali hypothesized that she was someone hired to defend them in case of an attack, but she didn’t seem like a commando. The rest of the engineers kept focus on their work, carrying parts from crates and placing them about while others connected wiring or welded with their omnitools.  
From her cover behind a crate, she accessed her omni tool again. She peeked out from behind cover just long enough to specify a location for her drone to spawn. With one final glance at the group of Asari, she activated her program.

Chiktikka the drone sprung to life in the center of the construction zone, glowing purple with its shielding in a slow rotation around its central core. The reaction from the Asari was immediate as soon as the drone was picked up on the scanners.

“Woah—hold on!” the lead Asari spoke up, raising a hand to draw attention. “We got an unknown drone here!”  
The remaining four engineers immediately drew their own weapons, glancing around wildly as they tried to find the source of the ball of light that was rapidly approaching them.

Tali scrambled back to duck behind further cover as the lead Asari approached the drone, her SMG raised. One tentative engineer followed after her, pistol in hand. The lead didn’t hesitate, firing down on the drone, sending disrupted electricity into the air.

Then came the distant sound of Legion’s rifle discharging, and it was instantly answered by the sound of a shot whistling through the air. It hit the lead Asari.  
From her position behind cover, Tali could hear her shields repel the shot, but only just barely.

“Sniper!” she shouted. “Everyone get down! Get behind cover!” She and the engineer dived behind crates to avoid a second shot from Legion. Each of the other Asari scrambled to find a place to hide.

When the lead Asari rose again, her body was covered with the glowing blue of a barrier. Legion hesitated briefly before his next shot.

There were four engineers. And one sentinel.

Chiktikka pressed her offense, hovering over to an engineer and zapping her with a painful bit of electricity. Tali took that as her chance to make a run for the abandoned turret parts.

The Sentinel’s helmeted face snapped to her direction. “We have another enemy, left flank!”

Shit. She must have stepped into their scanner radius. Popping up from cover, she fired bursts of rounds out towards the half exposed Asari, making them duck back behind cover, their shields warping from the shots. Then she turned and ran, hearing shots slam into and pierce the metal machinery behind her.

The chaos their plan had wrought only intensified. Her drone bobbed all around, drawing the Asari’s attention with electric bolts that stunned them and upset their shields. Whenever they tried to return fire on Chiktikka, Legion’s rifle forced them back into cover. Although the Geth was attempting to terminate the Asari, he found that his efforts were serving well to keep their attention off of Tali.

It did not take long for the sentinel to find him, unfortunately. She gestured to her engineers and began moving across the construction zone, staying carefully behind obstacles. Legion tracked the movements of her head, waiting for his chance to get a clear shot. His finger hovered over the trigger, his entire platform ready.  
The lead Asari sprang up and launched a biotic projectile at him. Legion fired his weapon just as the burst of energy curved around his cover to reach him.  
She was knocked off her feet from the force of the shot, but her barriers held.  
Legion felt the energy grip him and toss him out across the rocky terrain. His head hit a stone hard, his visual feed disrupted. The Widow was knocked from his hands. Like a ragdoll, he rolled and tumbled down the side of the hill adjacent to the construction. His extended arms and legs did little to break his fall, it was too steep. Then, shots were fired, hitting and damaging his kinetic shielding. The sentinel kept her gun trained on him the entire way down.

By the time he stopped moving at the base of the hill, his shields had been effectively deteriorated, leaving him exposed. His platform was sending him warnings of sustained damage. His shoulder burst into a spray of white liquid as another shot hit him. Legion dived for a bit of cover in the form of an unfinished wall, scrambling to wield the Avenger rifle he carried on his back.

Tali was frantic, trying to speedbuild the unfinished turret parts to the best of her ability. The hardest part was finding the right pieces to complete it. For one absurd moment she felt like a kid searching through a box of toys, desperate to find the right mechanical piece.  
From her own scanner, she could see the four Engineers slowly coming her way, a damaged Chiktikka chasing after them from a distance.

There wasn’t enough time for this. She snapped two pieces together without any grace or care and attached them with a sweep of her omnitool.

“There she is!” one of the Asari shouted from behind her. Tali whirled around, and she could see them approaching. They were moving mercifully slow, keeping to cover, still wary of the sniper that had gone suspiciously silent.

“Bosh’tet.” She swore harshly. Legion had better be alright or she didn’t know what she would do. A flurry of bullets hit beside her before they began landing onto her shields, shredding it with brutal efficiency. She had only seconds to get the turret set up.

She slammed the tripod down on the ground, the turret’s head beginning to rise as it went through its start up process.

“Shit—she’s got a turret up!” she heard one of the engineers shout from behind her. As she pleaded for the turret to move faster, it finally oriented itself into the active position.

And then promptly began beeping as it went through the beginning calibration period, its head staying still and unable to detect a thing. She mentally cursed the fact that she had put together a turret that had never been used before. Looks like it was up to her.

She readied her shotgun and hefted it, firing away at the engineer closest to her, who returned shots just as viciously with a pistol. She felt her shield generators overheat before her shielding compressed inward and collapsed into nothing. She saw the reaction in the Asari Engineer, even through her helmet. The look of triumph in the way she ejected the heat sink and loaded another.

Tali threw herself to the ground, landing hard on her arms. The shots from the engineer bounced off the wall behind her and the turret crate in front. The Asari swore and moved closer, trying to edge around to get a better shot in.

Just when she saw the engineer get in line with her, the situation drastically changed.

“Damn it—“ came another one of the Asari, from farther away. “Watch the turret! I said watch the turret!”

From her side, the turret swiveled on its tripod, and aimed at the Asari beside her. Tali gave a soft shriek and ducked her head down to the ground. The machine sprayed bullets at the engineer, destroying her shield in seconds. She tried to run, to find a place to hide behind but the turret tracked her movements and cut her down before she could. She fell to the ground and the turret turned to target the others.

They were luckier, rolling to hide behind the machine clutter in the area as the turret spewed suppressing fire. 

Tali gulped down the filtered air flowing through her helmet at the brief moment of peace she had. Now, she could call Chiktikka and maybe turn things around. She lifted a hand to her helmet to turn on her headset. 

“Legion—“ she hissed over the loud whirr of the turret. “Legion, what’s your status?” She would have thought that he would have started making his way over here by now. The moment of silence on the other end of the communication line made her jaw clench. “….Legion?”

A roar of static filled her headset, she recognized it as the distorted firing of his avenger rifle. “We are currently occupied.” The Geth managed to reply before the audio feed cut out. Her worry didn’t fade, but at least he was still alive.

One of the Asari stuck their head out of cover long enough to attract the targeting of the turret again, and Tali turned her attention back to the task at hand. She held up her omni tool, accessing Chiktikka’s program to check her status. Her shielding was heavily damaged but she was otherwise intact. With a few sweeps of her finger she called the drone to her location, hoping it would arrive soon.

A bright, glowing field enveloped the turret beside her, its head drooping down towards the ground. She turned her head towards it, her thoughts cut off by the recognized behavior. She ran out of her cover, just in time to hear the hacked turret return to a powered state. It found her, and rained bullets at her back.

\----  
Another biotic throw hit him square in the chest, and Legion was thrown off his feet up into the air. He hit a collection of metal beams and shook them loose of their restraints, the entire load collapsing out onto the ground. He kicked one beam off of himself, struggling to rise to face the sentinel. Both of them were exhausted. She was panting heavily, her barrier on its last legs. He was strained to the point that his motions had become less accurate, his aim unsteady. He had overclocked the power of his platform, sending it in to his shields that were barely holding on. 

He pulled up his omni tool and called out his drone. She empted her SMG into it before following the attack with a biotic shockwave that destroyed its central core. With his drone neutralized, she turned the gun on him and pulled the trigger. Two shots struck him in the chest, and his shield generators whined before failing, the green glow over his body stopping entirely.  
She pulled the trigger again, and her gun squealed, hot air escaping through some of its components. She cussed in her native tongue, ejecting the heat sink and searching for another. 

Legion took his chance and grabbed one of the metal beams at the feet. He strained only briefly to lift it up over his shoulders. The Asari glanced up in time to see it sailing straight for her. It hit her square in the chest and sent her sprawling to the ground. Her cry was brief, and it silenced as if she had been smothered. When she didn’t rise, the Geth hesitantly approached her, only to find the sentinel unresponsive. The visor of her helmet had shattered from the blow, and her environment suit had been crushed inwards.

He accessed his comm unit. “Creator Tali?”  
On the other end, she was silent, a reversal of their previous situation.  
The Geth began heading back towards her last known position. “Creator Tali, requesting response.”

The comm unit flicked on, and he heard a Quarian swear and then, “Not again, Kelaah—“ It went out before he could respond.  
Legion quickened his pace, leaping over boxes and debris as fast as he could.

\----

Had it been any other scenario, with something besides an extremely deadly turret, Tali would have found the situation funny. Hilarious, even.

But as it was now, Tali was currently in a game of hacking tug of war with the other Engineer, the both of them frantically trying to maintain control of a very confused turret that swiveled back and forth between them. Her shotgun was at her feet, both hands needed for the hasty hacking. It seemed a stalemate for a few tense seconds, before she heard an Asari call out.

“Keep the turret occupied, I’m going to try and get a shot!”

She hacked the turret one more time, then rushed to set up a firewall that would block the other Asari.

The near continuous glow on the turret abruptly went out, and it turned to track the Asari that had left cover. She scrambled, and the device got to her. Her companion howled in frustration, her hand glowing red before an incendiary strike shot out, heading straight for the turret.

Well. It just went to show that you needed time to properly set up a machine like that. The turret’s armor couldn’t withstand the blast, and it fell apart into smoldering pieces. Tali stared at the results of her clumsy work, wondering if she had a few more seconds to put the thing together whether it would have been able to withstand the attack.

“Ha!” the Asari turned to her, raising her pistol and aiming it at her head. “What are you going to do now, Quarian?”

The purple drone behind her answered with a zap of energy that leapt up her spine. Tali grabbed the heavy pistol at her hip and fired. The first shot took down her shields, the next one burst through the Asari’s helmet. The last engineer collapsed over a crate and the construction site went deathly silent.

“Keelah… Chiktikka, what took you so long?” she heaved a sigh, slumping onto the nearest wall as she gulped down some much needed air.  
The oblivious drone merely bobbed up towards her, shifting from attack state into her idle mode now that the danger was over.

She reached out to run a hand over its shielding shell in affection. “No one is faster than Chiktikka vas Paus? I take that back. But no one has better timing than you do.”

She looked up when she heard squeaking footsteps over the metal flooring, and there was Legion. He was bleeding coolant from a few bullet wounds, and he had more than a few new scratches on his platform. His normally stiff posture was sagging, and one of his eyeplates, the left ‘eyebrow’, seemed visibly damaged.

“Legion? What happened to you? What took _you_ so long?”

“We encountered heavy resistance.” He answered as if that explained everything. “Are you injured?”

“Suffice to say… things did not go very well.” Pulling up her omni tool, she gave her own suit systems a once over. “But no ruptures, so I guess things could have gone worse.”

“That is good.” He nodded, the damaged eyeplate jerking out before settling back into place.

She narrowed her eyes a little. “Did you hit your head or something?”

He tried to raise his eyeplates in an expression of surprise, but it didn’t turn out quite right. “Yes.”

“Well come on. Let’s get the data and the components so we can get out of this place.” Tali was not looking forward to the fifteen minute walk back they had ahead of them. Maybe she would hijack that shuttle anyways.

There was a console next to the Shroud construction. Judging by the width of the base of the thing, the Engineers had barely gotten started with it. The console was already powered on, and currently selected on one part of the blueprint. Tali smiled a little to herself. “They’re not making it very hard for us.”

The rest of the blueprint was hidden under a simple, halfhearted encryption that she broke in half a minute. “I’m going to send the blueprints to our omnitools. Take a look at it, Legion. I want your opinion.”

The Geth waited behind her, applying omni gel to seal over the leaking holes in his platform. The gel hardened into a rubber like bandage over the wounds, effectively covering them. It would stand until he was in a position to better repair himself. The ruined eyeplate was aesthetic defect and could be dealt with later. “Acknowledged.”

The blueprint for the Shroud was in depth, down to the last centimeter, and obviously Salarian in the organization and complexity. Legion pulled up several windows from the data being sent to his omni tool and held them up to be viewed.

“The design for this has the main override controls at the top floor of the tower.” Tali immediately noticed. “How does that make any sense?”

Legion didn’t answer. His optic was twisting and turning as he searched through the delicate components that the device needed to function. Then, he turned to look at her. “Creator Tali, manufacture of the Shroud currently requires more financial and material investment than the Quarian State is capable of. It would take decades to create just one of the Shroud’s necessary terraforming components.”

“I was afraid you would say that. What exactly will we need to take back with us?”

“All of it. But considering our vehicle, that will not be possible.”

Tali sighed, pressing a hand over her visor. “Great. What component has the greatest priority?”

Legion went silent, in the midst of calculations as the Geth gauged what they needed. “We may be able to take one of the atmospheric components with us.” He brought up an image of the piece and offered it to her.

It was several meters long and a meter wide. It also weighed some 750 kilograms. Yeah, they were definitely going to hijack the shuttle.

She checked the blueprints of the Shroud again, noticing that the piece he was describing was much higher up in the tower. “It hasn’t been installed yet, we’ll have to check the inventory to see if it’s here—“

Her words fell out of her mouth and she eventually went silent. Legion turned to see what she was looking at.

In the blue sky above them, another ship was gliding downwards out of the atmosphere


	4. Enter Cerberus

The two of them scrambled over half built machines, trying to find a place to hide. Tali found a crate with a sheet over it, and she practically tossed out its contents and threw herself inside. Legion just crouched right behind her crate, out of sight of the frigate that was descending towards the flat land of the build site. It was pure Asari in design. Metallic blue paint, and the traditional disk-like horizontal shape.

“It’s an Asari ship.” She hissed to Legion from her hiding place. Maybe their window of time had been shorter than they anticipated. Maybe this were the soldiers sent to guard and oversee the building of the facility. That wasn’t good. Her shields were still recovering and Legion looked as though he’d taken extensive damage. She didn’t know if they had another fight in them, much less a fight with a frigate’s worth of trained soldiers.

Legion gave a thoughtful chirp in turn. “Affirmative. Addendum, note that it has no identifying insignia.” Her gaze snapped to the side of the ship, and the Geth’s observation was correct. Where there typically was a corporate logo, or a crest of an Asari family, there was nothing. Blank paint on metal. The ship wasn’t even named, or whatever name had long been painted over.  
“Clever.” She came to the same conclusion Legion had. “The lack of a marker would confuse anyone enough to buy them time.” Including the two of them.

The frigate landed, and the cargo bay door hissed as it opened. Armored persons began stepping out over the lowered ramp. Though the environmental suits and helmets disguised their figures, their colorations were distinctive. White, black and yellow.

“Cerberus…” she hissed under her breath. “It’s the humans.” Out of the corner of her eye she could see Legion peeking around the crate, his optic still blaring. “Legion!” she hissed his way. “Lights off!”

The Geth floundered for a moment before his optic dimmed almost to darkness with a minute click. It’s a wonder Geth were able to sneak up on anyone since they almost never shut their optic lights off despite the fact that they could at will.

“We will separate to find a place to conceal ourselves.” Legion spoke in a hushed tone to her.

“Alright, just be careful.”

She could faintly hear the noises as Legion did not walk, but crawl his way behind crates and cover, looking for a place to conceal himself elsewhere. They faded, and soon she was left by herself, watching as the Cerberus troops fanned out over the construction area. One of them called out when they found the fallen Sentinel, the group gathering around and inspecting her. They talked rapidly amongst themselves, but Tali was too far away to understand any of it. She heard human words, but the distance was too large for her translator to pick up.

After a while they moved on, splitting up again to search further. One human walked straight past her crate, and she grew absolutely still, not even daring to breathe. He stopped briefly to note the destroyed turret. “Signs of a struggle?” The human’s voice was deep toned, and she caught a glimpse of the heavy rifle in his hands. “Yeah, no kidding. Got some turret parts over here. Only one was set up.” When he continued on past, she slowly let out a sigh.

An Engineer (as far as she could tell from her omni tool) headed straight for the Shroud’s base, going to the panel she herself had accessed only minutes before. And immediately, the Cerberus agent noticed that Tali had left it powered on.

“Woah. Taylor, you might want to take a look at this.”  
The human that had walked past her approached the Engineer, peering over at the console.

“See all these blueprints? This stuff is usually encrypted, but someone already went and dealt with that. This thing has been hacked into, probably by whoever went out and killed all the Asari here.”

The second human, Taylor, leaned closer to stare at the screen, at the long dead Salarian’s blueprints and the remnants of her hack.

“They left everything open, though. That means whoever did all this is probably still here.”

Taylor jerked up, looking around behind them as if he expected to see said stranger lurking behind them. Which, technically, Tali was. But just out of sight, peering at them from a gap between cloth and metal crate.

“Let’s keep looking for them, then.” Taylor jerked his head, a human gesture similar to a beckoning.

The Engineer nodded, stepping out before pausing. She had noticed her foot had stepped into something wet. The human glanced downwards, seeing white liquid under her toe. “Taylor, hold on a second.”

Tali instinctively swallowed hard.

“What is it?”

“This stuff is industrial coolant used for complex machines. Something sprung a leak.” The two of them stared down at the ground, and both of their heads turned Tali’s way. The Quarian stiffened, but realized they were looking after the trail of coolant that Legion had left from his wounds. That did not mean she was out of danger. Taylor followed the droplets over the ground, coming closer and closer to her hiding spot.

He paused and stared down at the junk parts she had thrown out to get to her hiding spot. She could feel his gaze even if she was out of sight.  
Then, the human began to duck his head, and she froze in place.

From far away, there was a loud clanging as a piece of machinery fell on top of another piece of metal, and Taylor jerked up away from her and turned around.

“What was that?” The Engineer yelped.

Another, softer clanging came from the same location. Legion.

The male human gestured to his companions. “Move in. Check it out.”

She could see one of the Cerberus men walk towards a pile of metal beams, cautiously, his gun leading the rest of him. He used the end of it to poke around, knocking a few of them around.

Then a three fingered hand shot out of the pile and grabbed the end of the rifle. It shoved it upwards with such force that it cracked against the human’s helmet, knocking him senseless. The weapon fell from his limp hands. Legion leapt from his hiding spot with a synthetic snarl, seizing the dazed human by the throat.

“What the hell is that thing?” another human yelled in terror.

“Geth!” the Engineer held up her rifle. “It’s a fucking Geth!”

Legion slammed the human against a heavy crate--once--twice, then threw him at his approaching companion, knocking them both to the ground.

Now that he had a clear shot, Taylor fired viciously at Legion, the shots pinging off of the metal around him, and the metal plate covering his shoulder. Legion’s optic snapped to the new threat, and he began to run, leaping over all the machinery in his way. He wasn’t going towards Taylor, Tali wondered if the Geth was retreating, trying to draw the humans away from her. But the Geth did not seem to be running away. He made a straight line right towards the shuttles parked at the edge of the construction site, his omni tool turning on and spinning with activity. The humans were recovering now, and rapidly approaching the Geth with their weapons raised. 

Legion’s shields were gone, they needed time to be repaired. A good shot from one of the humans would be enough to render him non functioning, permanently, especially if she wasn’t around for his processes to transfer to. The Geth wasn’t even facing the humans, just looking at the shuttles as if he were trying to find a way to get them open. His back was to her and to the Cerberus operatives, his glowing, vulnerable spine visible for all of them to see.

One of them fired a shot that hit Legion’s thigh, bursting open the fibrous ligaments that were unprotected by his armor. Tali tripped out of her hiding place, scrambling up from her knees. “Wait! Stop! Don’t shoot, please!” she held her hands high in the air, the gesture of surrender that every human understood.

The Cerberus agents paused, briefly looking over their shoulders at her before looking to the Geth. “Stop!” she said again, but this time it was more to Legion than to the humans.

The Geth gave a low sound of distaste, his eyeplates flaring out and settling in a second’s lapse. But carefully, almost grudgingly, he raised both his hands in the air just like she had. The humans seemed to still be recovering from the shock of seeing the Geth and the Quarian, but Taylor recovered first. “Tie him up,” he pointed at the Geth before turning and coming her way.

Her hands were quickly pinned together behind her back, and Taylor spread pliant omni gel around her wrists. It hardened into a stretchy but taunt material that bound them together. Clever use of omni gel for a temporary handcuff. She would have to remember that. Legion had been restrained in the same manner, but his headplates were in constant motion, signaling his distress.  
“There we go. All taken care of.” The Cerberus agent next to him chuckled a little. With the butt of his rifle, he nudged the side of the Geth’s head. Legion turned to him and let out another mechanical screech, causing the human to jump back with a surprisingly high pitched sound.

Taylor approached the Geth and grabbed him by one of his throat cords. The human probably didn’t know, but it prompted a significantly negative sensory reflex in the Geth.  
“Listen.” He muttered, “I don’t want to have to shoot you, so don’t do anything stupid.” When he released the cord the Geth yanked his head back, muttering things that neither he nor Tali could translate.

“So what now, Taylor?” the Engineer asked him.

“We’re taking them back onto the ship.”

\----

The commandeered Cerberus vessel was just as pristine on the outside as it was on the inside, though it was apparent the old Asari machinery had been gutted and replaced by the form over function human taste in architecture. The lights on the ship were nearly blinding, and the white painted reflective surfaces of most of the ship did not help her eyes adjust at all.

Once they had been brought inside the ship and through its airlock, the humans removed their helmets and Tali found herself momentarily distracted. Taylor was… a rather good looking human male. Dark skin, large brown eyes, a bit of the species’ peculiar stubble at his jaw. She had to shake her head and remind herself not to lose focus. He glanced briefly back at her, probably having noticed her staring. “Lawson, we have a problem.”

Another human stepped out from the bridge further within the ship. The Lawson woman was not like Taylor. Even though humans were mammalian and warm blooded, everything about her seemed ice cold and pointed. Her gaze seemed to cut through her suit like it was nothing, and Tali was glad her hands were tied behind her or else she might have tried to cover her face.

“What happened?” She demanded, and her voice was just as biting as her blue eyes.

“These two got here before we did. Killed the engineers working here and hacked into the Shroud’s blueprints. Figured you’d want to question them.”  
She turned her attention to the both of them, her dark hair just barely out of her face. She was dressed strangely compared to the rest of them, like a less armored environmental suit. The woman walked around them like a predator circling its next meal.

“And who… are you?”

“Naeema vas Iktomi.” Tali blurted out without the slightest hesitation. She couldn’t use her name or her typical false identity, so she made one up on the spot, a mangled combination of two Quarians she once knew.

“An alias.” Lawson looked back at the Cerberus guards around the room. The statement was more to them than to her. “You. Geth. What is your identification?”

Tali had not been expecting the humans to address Legion at all. She snuck a glance at the Geth, who was standing tall and completely still.

“Geth.” He answered. Just as he had answered when Tali had first asked him for his name.

“What is your name?” the woman pressed him further.

“Geth.” Again, he replied.

Her lips pressed together into a tighter line. Disapproval, but tolerance. “Very well, Geth. What is your business here on Trebin?”

Up until that point, the human’s behavior had been absolutely baffling. Tali had expected herself to be interrogated at gunpoint, but Lawson was only speaking to Legion. Then, it hit her. Lawson was probably operating in belief of the myth that Geth weren’t capable of lying.

Legion’s eyeplates flexed gently. “No data.”

The black haired woman narrowed her eyes, her gaze intensifying tenfold. “Why did you come to this planet?”

Legion’s optic turned a few degrees to the left. “No data.”

The thing about Geth was that they did not have a very firm understanding of organic behavior or thought process. Lying in order to produce an expected reaction in an organic (such as being deceived) could take them hours to agree on a manufactured falsehood. Legion himself considered it something that had ‘too many unknown variables’ to consider or speculate on. However, there were two kinds of lying that Geth were skilled at: A. creating a lie in order to observe how organics would react to the false information and B. intentionally omitting information.

The second kind was one Legion preferred to utilize.

Lawson took his answers without any indication that she doubted him. “It must destroy earlier data as a safeguard against being hacked.” She postulated out loud. Her gaze shot across the room to Taylor, who had his arms crossed over his chest and his back against the hull of the ship.

“See if it knows anything else, then,” he offered with a shrug.

Lawson paused to think for a moment before she approached Legion again. “What do you know about Eden Prime?”

Both Legion and Tali halted at the name. Eden Prime. Earth’s budding colony on a beautiful garden planet. It was perfect, practically flawless for human occupation. The soil was lush and compatible with Earth plant breeds, and it was temperate enough to be livable. Humanity had rallied for half a decade to get the rights to build on it and paid in sweat and blood and creds. It was thought that it was humanity’s best chance at recovering within the Asari Empire, at gaining acceptance and prestige again. 

It was also the location of the first mission Admiral Xen had assigned to them that they had failed.

“Clarify.” Was Legion’s non answer. Tali turned her head to look at him in shock. He did not look back at her, his gaze focused on the human. The Geth was planning something, and what worried her, terrified her, was that she had no idea what that would be.

“Were you on Eden Prime during the Asari’s seizing of it?”

Legion bowed his head in a single nod. “Affirmative.”

The Cerberus members around them reacted with low mutters to one another, shifting about in sudden excitement. Lawson turned her glare on each of them until they fell quiet again.

“Were you with the Geth Unit that attacked Eden Prime?”

Tali was suddenly very grateful for her visor, because even though she managed to silence an exclamation, she couldn’t stop her mouth from flopping open. The same emotion seemed to tear through Legion, his eyeplates springing up, even the nonfunctional one. He turned to her, then, wordlessly, searching her face and receiving the confirmation that she was feeling the shock he was.

Lawson was quick to notice the look passed between them. “Geth. I asked you a question, not her.” Her words were somewhere between a threat and a warning.

Legion’s focus snapped back to the Cerberus agent. As if to make up for the lapse in his answers, he quickly replied, “Negative.”

Instead of staring at Legion, Lawson turned her blue eyed gaze to Tali. This look was explicitly a threat. Tali had seen enough disgust thrown her way in her life to recognize it. It was likely she thought Tali had tainted or altered Legion’s answer, somehow, by their brief eye contact.

“Were you with the Geth Unit that attacked Eden Prime?” she repeated, returning to Legion.

‘No’ would probably not be an acceptable answer at this point. Legion bowed his head, either attempting to gesture with his optic, or perhaps imitating a look of shame or resignation. “We were present at Eden Prime. However, this unit was deployed alone.”

The human’s stance eased, softening into satisfaction. “Now we’re getting somewhere. What was your purpose on Eden Prime?” Tali really, really hoped Legion wouldn’t answer that question. But by this point, she had realized his plan. He was offering information in order to attempt to receive, even if by accident, information from Cerberus in turn. Just by Lawson’s questions, they had already begun to learn more about their situation.

“To recover the Prothean artifact located on the planet.” Legion answered, without hesitating. Now they were officially in trouble. Now, a bunch of human rebels were aware that a rogue Geth had gone hunting for Prothean goodies, breaking one of the Empire’s strictest mandates. And there was only one rogue Geth in the entire galaxy, the one standing next to her, the one exiled Quarian Tali’Zorah had stolen. She really hoped this would be worth it.  
The humans certainly reacted like it was, another wave of shock going through the group. Taylor shifted from his spot against the wall, and Lawson’s eyes widened minutely in interest. Tali could practically see the thoughts rushing about in her head.

Thanks to the Empire, no one really knew much about the Protheans. Everyone wanted to know about them, of course, them being an ancient civilization that went extinct some 50,000 years ago. But uncovering an artifact and keeping it from the Empire was tantamount to treason, and subject to violent retribution and mandated punishments that could last for years. Once an artifact was unearthed, the lucky finder had to hand it over to Asari. They were reimbursed for the discovery, often handsomely, but only Asari were actually permitted to study the artifacts. Eden Prime had been an accidental discovery, one the humans weren’t prepared to deal with. Tali and Legion had been sent in to recover the artifact before everything went to hell, but things did not always go as planned.

“Did you successfully retrieve the artifact?” There was an energy, an eagerness in her voice that hadn’t been there before.

He gently shook his head from side to side, his broken headplane rattling as he did. “Negative. The Prothean beacon was destroyed during an attempt to recover it.”

“Destroyed? How?”

Legion’s optic turned as he recalled what the two of them had seen on Eden Prime. “We do not know the cause of the destruction.” Before Lawson could demand a better answer out of him, he continued. “Before it could be retrieved, a human approached the beacon. It activated, possibly in response to their proximity, and self destructed.”  
The memory of what had happened still appeared in Tali’s dreams from time to time. It was strange how something could be so incredible to behold yet crushing at the same time. The stranger in armor, being held suspended in the air before the ancient technology simply fell apart, the glowing shards scattering across the ground as a strong, visible energy dispersed into the air.

The human in front of them had to pause and consider his words. “A human. Who? Identify them.”

“No identification available.”

She scowled, her teeth just visible between her lips. “What did they look like?”

“The human was wearing armor similar in appearance to out of commission Alliance Navy unit, implying they were a vigilante defending Eden Prime as opposed to an employed member of the colony’s security force. Because of this, we were unable to note bodily or facial features”

And suddenly Legion’s reasons for picking up the shoulder armor just got a little weirder. She’d have to talk him about that later. Lawson seemed to be having similar thoughts, her gaze staying on the Geth’s added armor piece before returning to look him in his optic. “And then what happened to them afterwards?”

“We do not know. We were forced to retreat from the planet shortly after the destruction of the Prothean artifact.”

The answer did not anger Lawson, but she seemed disappointed. She let out a sigh and rubbed her forehead in irritation. 

“Sounds like yet another dead end.” Taylor spoke up again, propping himself up off of the wall.

The woman turned her attention to him, “Well, we don’t even have a name. Checking the indentured contracts on Illium would be a waste of time.”

“Hell, the only definite information we have is the old Navy armor, and you can find that sold on the eccentric’s black market by the dozens.” Cerberus must have been after the human who had found the beacon. Or humans that knew anything about the attack at all.

Tali found herself shifting in discomfort. The humans almost seemed to have forgotten about her. Lawson abruptly turned around, seemingly remembering something important. “Geth.” Legion snapped back into attention. “Who was it that sent you to Eden Prime?”

She drew in a sharp breath out of reflex, staring at her companion. To her relief, the Geth was unmoved by the question. “No data available.”

Lawson gave a much more exasperated sigh.

“Well, it was worth a try,” Taylor shrugged his shoulders. “So.” The man made his way over to his comrade’s side. “What are we going to do with these two, then?”

She swallowed hard, and finally decided to speak up. “Look.” The two human’s faced her, and their attention was just as intimidating as she feared. “I can tell you why we are on Trebin.”

One of the man’s brows quirked upwards. “Oh yeah?”

“We’re here for the same reason you are, to get the Shroud.” 

Lawson looked as though she were going to raise an objection to that before she reconsidered. The terraforming device was the single notable thing on this planet. There wasn’t any other reason they would bother coming there. “And why is it you’re after the Shroud?”

Tali was about to give some stereotypical reason like credits, but Taylor took the liberty of answering for her. “She’s a Quarian. They probably need it for their home planet.”  
She was surprised at that. She hadn’t been expecting humans to know or care about the goals of the other races, especially after Xen had warned about the divisions between them.

Either way, the woman seemed satisfied with the answer. Tali decided to press her luck. “We didn’t mean to cause you trouble. The Geth just got a little…” she floundered for an inoffensive word to use, “Overzealous.”

“It hit me in the face with my rifle!” came the protest of the unfortunate human that Legion had ambushed. “I think my nose is broken… and my helmet.”

Tali tried to laugh but it came out like a cough and maybe laughing wasn’t the best reaction to have in the first place. “All I’m asking is that you let us go, and…” she glanced at Legion before looking Taylor in the face “Let us take one of the atmospheric components.”

The male human just frowned. Not a good sign. “I’m sorry, but the two of you will be coming with us. You’re a security risk out there and we just can’t let that happen.”

She had been afraid of that. But she understood his thoughts. Her and Legion had seen their faces, and if she was ever captured…

Lawson just turned away from them, heading back to the bridge of the ship. “He’s had an interest in Geth for a while, after all. Having one intact will be valuable.”

Legion stood stock still, silent. Even his headplates had stopped moving.  
Then his omni-tool activated. Taylor was quick to notice, reacting by reaching for his firearm. “Hey, how did—“

Legion’s optic turned to focus on her. “Brace for impact.”

“What?” Her eyes widened a split second before the entire frigate groaned and turned as something slammed into its hull. Taylor was knocked off his feet, the human guards slammed into the adjacent wall, Lawson flailed to try and keep her balance.

Tali’s entire field of view turned on its side as she hit the floor. She heard an omni blade whirl into life and cut straight through something. In the next second Legion was grabbing her arms and pulling her onto her feet. His omni blade severed her bonds and that was all she needed to turn and run alongside the Geth. She looked back and saw Taylor lift up a pistol to aim it at the both of them.

The hull was impacted again, and the weapon was thrown out of his hands and across the floor. Legion held her upright in a vice grip, rushing towards the airlock.

Tali activated Chiktikka’s program and sent the drone to the center of the ship, only sparing a second’s look to see as the drone’s shielding rose in response to the threat. Behind her, she could hear the zap of electricity and Taylor’s pained curse in answer.

Legion’s hand slammed into the console controls for the airlock, taking precious seconds to unlock the inner door. Mercifully, it hissed open, and the both of them hurried inside. The Geth moved to begin hacking the outer door. “Requesting assistance with closing ship side doors!” 

Tali turned around, seeing the open entryway behind them, and the Cerberus forces that were coming their way. Lawson was advancing on them fast. “No need to tell me twice!” She brought up her omni tool and forced the doorway to shut itself.

The last thing she saw as the metal seals came sliding across was Lawson overloading and destroying Chiktikka with a single wave of her hand. As soon as it had shut, her omni tool screeched in warning, as her hack on the door was being overridden. “They’re trying to get in!” she shouted back over her shoulder.

“Approximate completion in thirty seconds.” The Geth announced.

She swore, setting up flimsy firewalls as fast as the Engineer behind the door could take them each down. “We’re running out of time here!”

“Fifteen seconds!”

She could hear Taylor on the other side of the seal, “I told you not to do anything stupid!”

“Door opening in five-“

Tali dropped the hack and rushed to Legion’s side.  
“Three-“

The door behind them opened, and she could hear the whine of targeting sights of weapons focusing on them.

But then the door in front of them was open and the air from the ship rushed out to the weaker atmosphere outside. The humans immediately flinched away, Taylor scrambling to put his helmet back on and Lawson retreating further inside.  
The Asari’s shuttle was waiting for them outside. Its entire front was crushed inwards and heavily bent from being repeatedly smashed into the side of the Cerberus’ vessel. But its doors were popped open and that was all the invitation she needed.

Legion reached the shuttle first, sliding past the drivers seat and into the passenger side seat. Tali put herself in the driver’s side and brought up the control interface. Shots hit and bounced off of the shuttle’s weak kinetic shielding, but it was some protection and that was enough. The doors shut on either side of them, and she lifted off the ground and into the air. The humans that had followed them out shrunk away, and Tali breathed a momentary sigh of relief.

“Creator Tali, we have located the atmospheric component.” Legion pulled over a map of the facility, the presumed area marked with a blinking read dot.

“D-do we really have time to go down there and get it? It’s 750 kilograms!”

Legion’s optic spun frantically. “We believe we can retrieve it.” He stopped short, his neck craning to look out the window. “Warning: the Cerberus frigate is equipped with its own shuttle.”

Tali followed his gaze and swore again. The humans were loading onto a military class shuttle, one that was armored, sleek and fast.  
“Well then you better get ready to load the damn cargo, Legion.”

“Acknowledged.” 

She arched the vehicle downwards, flying over the construction site to the marked location. The enormous piece of machinery was still crated up, delivered but never unpacked.

She landed the shuttle messily, the edges of the bottoms scraping hard across the metal surface underneath. She and Legion leapt out in unison. She pulled open the shuttle’s back doors as the Geth flung the top off of the crate.

“Requesting assistance!”

“Legion, you can lift at least three times as much as me, why are you asking my help?”

“Please support the other end of the component.”

She gave a groan of exasperation, but quickly grabbed the end of the device opposite to the Geth, and together they somehow managed to lift it off the ground. She was sure Legion was carrying most of it, but even then it was unbelievably heavy on her arms and aching legs. Legion led them, walking the component into the back of the shuttle.

They both perked up when the heard the gunning of another engine, and the Cerberus shuttle was coming into view from just over the hill.  
She dropped her end of the component and circled around the shuttle to get into the front seat. “Close the doors, and get ready to drag it into our ship when we touch down!”

The Geth’s “Acknowledged” was drowned out as their own shuttle rumbled and puttered back into life, lifting them off the ground once more. She could hear the 750 kilogram machinery slide across the back of the shuttle, and Legion give a short cry. 

“Hang in there!” She swerved the vehicle again, this time to avoid the shots fired from the other shuttle behind them.

“We have come to the conclusion that Admiral Xen’s concerns of Cerberus were not unjustified.”

She dived down towards the rocky, ragged ground, hoping that she could somehow manage to out maneuver their pursuers. “You think so?” She shouted back at the Geth.  
Another turn past a rocky outcropping, and both Legion and the device slide rough across the cargo hold before hitting a wall.  
Another set of shots hit their shielding hard. She could see the purple energy distort right across the hood of her windshield. Their flimsy vehicle wasn’t build to withstand this type of artillery. Either they would make it to their ship in time, or they were going to get shot down trying. 

As she hit another hard curve, she spotted their ship they left alongside a cliff. No sooner had she breathed out in relief, a burst shattered their shields, and the rear windows of the shuttle in one sickening blow.

“Legion?!” She couldn’t even spare a glance back, though she felt the impact of shattered glass bounce off of her suit. The vehicle’s control’s shuddered in her hands, and began tilting down, down, down…

She overexerted the shuttle’s front thrusters, trying to balance out their fall out of desperation. It slowed them down but the ground was approaching fast--

She flung her hands in front of her face when the shuttle hit raw dirt, jerking her forward and bashing her bodily against the front of the seat. They slid and slid through soil before the engines wheezed and groaned and died.

There was pain, and there were blurry shapes in front of her. Her breath rattled through her mask’s filter. Some part of her knew that she should be getting out of the shuttle right now. It was the sensible part of her screaming in the back of her head while dazed colors swirled in her field of vision. “Legion…?” She called out to the Geth. The back door of the shuttle swung open, she could hear its thud as if it were far away, and the Geth was suddenly in the corner of her vision. His oversized optic just a little too bright.

“Creator Tali, we need to move.”

“Wh-where’s the ship?”

He guided her out of her seat with his tense grip, and she had to throw her arms around his shoulders as her sight spun around in a multicolored mess. After shaking her head to try and clear her senses, she could see the ruined shuttle and their ship just a few meters away. “…Legion I think this may have been my best landing yet.” Her humor was intact, even though nothing else was.

“Creator Tali, can you stand? We need to move the component.” She tried to get both her feet planted firmly on the ground, wobbling one way, then the other. Cerberus, the mangy bunch of humans was right on their tail. Their shuttle had landed someways away. Probably close. She needed to stand, she needed to get moving.

After shaking her head again and blinking her eyes, she was able to hold herself up, and Legion left her to drag the Shroud piece out of the ruined shuttle. As she gathered herself, she grabbed the other end of it, lifting it off the ground even as she felt dizzy and sick.

Shots pierced the bent hull of their shuttle before burying into the dirt around them. Tali glanced back and saw the armored humans, their yellow uniforms, and their raised weapons. 

The cargo doors to their ship popped open, and Legion crouched in order to enter it, still lifting the heavy load as he went.

Two rounds hit the metal of their ship and were deflected. A third one hit something wet, and she saw purple splatter across the component she was carrying.

Tali glanced up at Legion, and saw him staring back at her, his optic dilated to an extreme, the plates around his eye fanned out like a frightened creature.  
One of her legs went out from under her, and the component groaned from the loss of support before Legion could drag it and shove it into the back of the ship.

White, warm pain flooded up the right side of her chest, and she pressed her palm against one wet spot on her suit. She felt the blood leak down her sides and the inner layers against her skin. Her mouth felt very dry. Tasted metallic. Unpleasant, but when Legion slid an arm around her shoulders, she was able to move her legs again. They both clamored into the cockpit, and with bloodstained hands Tali activated the controls and sent their ship straight into the sky.

They left the humans and the dead Asari far behind.

Legion had guided them out of the system and applied medigel to her by the time she had fainted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, a break in the action sequences, and Legion and Tali prepare to confront Admiral Xen.


End file.
